Former Crimson Tide, MLB Star Butch Hobson Reaches Coaching Milestone

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Former University of Alabama two-sport standout Butch Hobson, who went on to a commendable Major League Baseball playing and managerial career, can't help but love the smell of a baseball.

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Whether it's fresh out of the box or soaked with rain and caked in red dirt, that distinct aroma is the reason he cited for his longevity in the game he loves so much.

"When I was a little boy, I would smell a baseball and say 'dang, that thing smells good,'" he told Patch. "I don't know what it was about it. I used to pass the ball to my son and say 'Smell that. If it smells good, then you love it.' And, as long as that ball keeps smelling good to me or to you as a player and you want to hold on to that feeling, then you continue to play. Whenever you lose that feeling, it's time to hang it up."

Hobson is 71 years old and, despite battling a lingering knee issue, his passion for the game is as strong as ever. So much so, in fact, that it helped him reach an illustrious coaching milestone earlier this month.

The manager of the independent Chicago Dogs of the American Association of Professional Baseball, Hobson recently secured his 2,200th career professional coaching win this week — becoming one of only a select group of baseball managers to do so.

Strictly looking at managerial records for all levels of professional baseball in America, Hobson's win total tops the career marks posted by Hall of Famers like Sparky Anderson (2,194), Joe McCarthy (2,125), Dusty Baker (2,093), and Bruce Bochy (2,003).

It also places him among the winningest managers in Minor League Baseball history.

Not only was he a starter and standout on some of the most iconic Red Sox teams in the franchise's history — he hit 30 home runs and logged 112 RBI during the 1977 season — but he would go on to manage the club and even bring on his old skipper, the legendary Don Zimmer, to serve as his assistant.

He hit three career home runs off Hall of Famer Jim Palmer and was in the Red Sox lineup when Bucky Deny hit one of the most famous home runs in baseball history for the New York Yankees in 1978 in an American League East tiebreaker game that is still talked about to this day.

“Butch Hobson is a legend of this game," Chicago Dogs broadcaster Sam Brief told Patch. "For parts of six decades, he’s been a core member of myriad organizations, and we’re lucky with the Dogs to have Butch as our manager.”

The Chicago Dogs began the Wolff Cup Playoffs on Wednesday after finishing the regular season 56-44, topping the Cleburne (Texas) Railroaders in the opening round to advance to the East Division Championship, with the first in the best-of-three series set for Monday in Milwaukee. The winner of the series will then advance to the Wolff Cup finals.

"We added a couple of starters and had a young kid out of Delta State [Steven Lacey] that's come on and pitched well and a second baseman out of Coastal Carolina [Payton Eeles], who's a Pete Rose kind of player who ignites just about everything," Hobson told Patch in a phone interview from his hotel room. "It's been a good little run. I'm glad to be back and excited about trying to go out and win this thing."

Hobson was sidelined for a large part of the summer and managed remotely as he battled through complications from a planned knee replacement. But on the eve of reaching his milestone, he was cleared to return to the dugout for the last leg of the season.

"When I first started managing, I set a goal for 1,500 wins," he said. "I was fortunate enough to reach that and I don't know what I'd do without this game. I've been doing it for 51 years now and love it. I was pretty much miserable the whole time I was home and not able to be here with my team.

"I was fortunate that [the 2,200th win] happened a week or so ago and I'm thankful to have been in the game as long as I have," Hobson added. "The game's been good to me and I'm glad I can continue to do this. And the way I look at it, I might as well go for 2,300 wins."

Despite a winning percentage just under .500 during his three seasons as manager of the Boston Red Sox from 1992 through 1994, Hobson would go on to become one of the winningest minor league managers in the history of the sport.

ALSO READ | Butch On Baseball: The Story Of A West Alabama Big Leaguer

After retiring as a player following impressive stints with the Red Sox, New York Yankees and California Angels, Hobson secured his first managerial job in 1987 with the Class A Columbia Mets of the New York Mets organization. He went on to become a Minor League manager in the Red Sox organization before eventually getting the call-up to manage the big club from 1992-1994.

As Patch previously reported, Hobson posted a career 207-232 record in Boston and Hall of Fame sportswriter Peter Gammons wrote when Hobson was fired from the Red Sox after the 1994 season that it was "because he cared too much about his players."

And if you ask Hobson today, he'll tell you that it's an attitude that has only strengthened over the years as he matured into the role of a professional baseball manager.

It's also a technique he learned from his college football coach — Paul W. "Bear" Bryant.

Hobson's talents on the baseball diamond easily outshine his place in Crimson Tide football history, despite being a defensive back and backup quarterback for Bryant during some of the most iconic years in the program's history.

Indeed, his most-watched college football action came in the 1972 Orange Bowl game — a 38-6 loss to Nebraska that cost Bryant the chance at claiming the fourth national title of his career.

Tide quarterback Terry Davis went down with an injury after the game was out of reach and Hobson came in to run the Wishbone offense. He carried the ball 15 times for 84 yards in the losing effort — four more yards than his teammate and legendary Tide running back Johnny Musso ... if you don't count the sacks that drove his rushing yard total down to the 50s.

But it was how Bryant treated his players when no one from the outside was looking that shaped how Hobson would approach the next half-century of his athletic and coaching career.

And it was Bryant he cited when asked what advice he would offer to any young managers embarking on their careers.

"I think, number one, you have to learn how to be a good communicator," he said. "I think that comes with any coaching position, whatever it might be ... I tell our players I love them and I got that from Coach Bryant, because he told us all the time. I believe Coach Bryant had us prepared every Saturday and, if we lost, he would be the first person to come in and tell us "I'm sorry, I didn't have y'all prepared' and I've done that with every team. That's gone a long way for me. I'm never going to change from that and I'm at the age I could retire, but if that day ever comes I will retire."

Indeed, Hobson has an undeniable passion for the game and his players. But his impact as the first-ever manager of the Chicago Dogs going back to when the organization formed in 2019 extends well past the dugout.

It's a legacy that's still being built, but one that has touched more lives than Hobson realizes.

"From my vantage point as the team’s broadcaster, it can be easy for a seasoned manager like Butch to treat me with disregard," Brief told Patch. "But Butch has welcomed me in as a friend and brother, and that’s exactly how he treats his players, fellow coaches and fans. Butch is loving, entertaining, witty, warm, and a baseball genius. To win 2,200 games is an incredible accomplishment. It also means he’s old, but don’t tell him I said that."

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